Settings crashes when opening "Apps"

[lilacen]

Ubuntu Version:
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
GNOME

Problem Description:
I wanted to check if everything worked fine in Ubuntu, so I went to check the “Apps” setting, but the app just crashes, which makes it impossible for me to access that setting.

Relevant System Information:
My PC is relatively new, maybe that could be why?
Ryzen 5 9600X, AMD RX 9060 XT, with a MSI B650.
This problem is also coming from a fresh install of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, from day one.

Screenshots or Error Messages:
”gnome-control-center” outputs (while reproducing the same steps):
03:35:36.1600 Adwaita[12335]: WARNING: The resource style-dark.css is deprecated and shouldn’t be used anymore. Use style.css with media queries instead.
03:35:36.1600 Adwaita[12335]: WARNING: The resource style-hc.css is deprecated and shouldn’t be used anymore. Use style.css with media queries instead.
WARNING: radv is not a conformant Vulkan implementation, testing use only.
03:35:38.8360 GLib[12335]:CRITICAL: g_strsplit: assertion ‘string != NULL’ failed
Segmentation fault (core dumped) gnome-control-center

“sudo dmesg | tail -20” outputs:
[ 1327.269280] gnome-control-c[12335]: segfault at 0 ip 0000730393e5357a sp 00007ffcdf5ea3b0 error 4 in libmalcontent-0.so.0.14.0[957a,730393e51000+d000] likely on CPU 3 (core 3, socket 0)
[ 1327.269290] Code: bc 00 00 00 49 be 2f 73 6e 61 70 2f 62 69 4c 89 ef e8 1a e8 ff ff ba ff ff ff ff 48 8d 35 4b ad 00 00 48 89 c7 e8 96 ee ff ff <48> 8b 18 48 89 45 c8 4c 8d 78 08 48 85 db 75 12 e9 af 03 00 00 90

What I’ve Tried:
I don’t have much knowledge on troubleshooting this, so I just reinstalled gnome-control-center, but that didn’t do anything. Other distributions like Fedora Workstation lets me access to the “Apps” setting as it should be.

Before Posting:
” Please check if similar issues have already been reported and resolved.”
This seems to be a totally new issue I am having.

Personal Note:

I really want to be able to like Ubuntu, as I like the slightly modified version of GNOME they provide, but if I stumble across bugs like these, I might not find Ubuntu as polished as I would have imagined.

I am glad to give more information if needed!

[marcelstevano]

I spent some time digging into this and found that the crash pattern you’re seeing has already been reported by other Ubuntu 26.04 users. The important part is that the failure occurs inside libmalcontent-0.so.0.14.0 rather than gnome-control-center itself. The combination of:

g_strsplit: assertion ‘string != NULL’ failed

followed by a segmentation fault in:

libmalcontent-0.so.0.14.0

matches another Ubuntu 26.04 report almost exactly:

Gnome-shell segfault libmalcontent-0.so.0.14.0

Ubuntu Support Template Ubuntu Version: 26.04 (post 26.04 release date I did do-release-upgrade -d from 24.04) Desktop Environment (if applicable): GNOME Problem Description: Issue started as not being able to use Settings > Apps. When clicking on apps I was able to force crash Settings. => /var/log/kern.log <== 2026-04-28T12:05:08.069368-06:00 machine kernel: Lockdown: systemd-logind: hibernation is restricted; see man kernel_lockdown.7 2026-04-28T12:05:08.108377-06:00 machine kernel: rfk…

Bug #2152282 “[SRU] Ubuntu 26.04 / Settings crashes when accessi...” : Bugs :...

According to the changelog, Ubuntu identified a crash path where g_app_info_get_commandline() could return NULL and that value was then passed directly to g_strsplit(). The fix simply adds the missing NULL checks before calling g_strsplit(), which lines up very well with the assertion message and backtrace you posted.

Based on that, I do not think your Ryzen 5 9600X, RX 9060 XT, or B650 platform are involved here. Everything points to an Ubuntu-side bug in the malcontent integration layer while processing application metadata. It also explains why the issue can appear on a fresh Ubuntu 26.04 installation, why reinstalling GNOME Settings does not help, why the Apps panel crashes consistently, and why the same behavior is not being widely reported on other distributions.

As a temporary troubleshooting step, it may still be worth checking whether a malformed desktop entry, Snap package, or third-party application is contributing to the trigger condition. However, since Ubuntu already has a fix queued for this exact code path, I would expect an updated package to resolve the problem more reliably than local workarounds. Based on the available evidence, I would classify this as an Ubuntu bug rather than a hardware compatibility issue.

[rubi1200]

@lilacen Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse

Try running sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and then checking if the crash still occurs.

I don’t have more to add since @marcelstevano seems to have covered everything rather nicely

[lilacen]

Hello thanks for all of the great replies, I’m glad to hear that this issue was queued by Ubuntu before.

Thanks to marcel, I managed to find what was causing the problem, it finds out that there was a malformed snap package/desktop entry. This app was “Vesktop (unofficial)” so I just uninstalled it and installed the discord snap package instead.